This trip was a first in three ways:  our first trip to Iceland, our first cruise on Ponant, and our first hiking trip with Backroads.  And all three were very successful.

Iceland is everything you have heard about it:  amazing mountains, glaciers, waterfalls, and volcanoes; friendly people; a surprisingly warm climate given the location on the Arctic Circle.  You can get the flavor of Iceland in as little as two days [one for Reykjavik, and one for the Golden Circle of Þingvellir, Geyser and Gullfoss waterfall plus the Blue Lagoon] – but if you can go to all four corners of the country you will see a much more varied landscape and lots more of everything.

Ponant is a welcome addition to our list of premium cruise lines.  The ‘explorer class’ ships [Le Lapérouse, Le Champlain, Le Bougainville, Le Dumont-d’Urville, Le Bellot, and Le Jacques Cartier] are drop-dead beautiful from your first glimpse.  The most beautiful profile of any ship I have ever seen.  Very well laid out from stem to stern [the stern platform is used for loading the tenders, which is much nicer and more stable than the typical side-door].  The interior features tasteful luxury at every turn.

Capacity is 184 passengers [we weren’t quite full] with 110 staff and crew, for a ratio of 1.7 [similar to Azamara and Oceania].  The ships are rated at 9,900 tons, giving 53.8 per passenger [better than A and O].  This puts Ponant at the top of the Premium or Entry-Luxury class [with the smallest ships], but not at the level of true Luxury lines like Seabourn, Silversea, or the new Scenic Eclipse.

The cabins are not huge by large luxury ship standards, but are generous by yacht standards [most cabins are 204 sf, suites range from 291 to 484 sf; and all have balconies] and are very well laid out – we didn’t feel cramped, and there were drawers we never used.

Most of the cabins on deck 5 [including ours] are ‘connecting’ to allow conversion to two-bathroom suites – the only downside in the non-suite configuration is that a generous corner banquette is replaced by a chair.  [For our next Ponant cruise we have booked on deck 4 in a similar cabin which will have the banquette.]

The Theater is well designed for lectures and for the small-group entertainment they feature [I think – we didn’t make it to any of the shows with the three dancers and one singer].  There are two lounges, and an outdoor pool.  There was a rumor of a spa and fitness room – but the service is so non-pushy that I never had to say no.  [Like Mark Twain, when I get the urge to exercise I lie down until it passes…]

These ships also have the innovative ‘Blue Eye’ lounge on deck 1 – a multi-sensory underwater experience with windows that show the marine life swimming by and hydrophones that add the sounds from a three-mile radius.  They offered guided tours of the Blue Eye during our cruise, but we didn’t sign up – and the cold waters of Iceland were not the best environment for experiencing this concept.  [We will have to give it a try in New Zealand.]

The Nautilus Restaurant on deck 4 seats all passengers in one seating.  Service is very attentive.  The included wines are good and varied.  The food is imaginative, and might be better appreciated if were a little less so.  The four daily entrée choices always included one fish [almost always a white fish] and one vegetarian dish, but the other two didn’t add the expected variety [for our taste].  We rarely go to the ‘always available’ menu on ships, but tried the rib eye steak [cooked medium rare as ordered but tough], and the hamburger [strange].

There was also the option to dine at the Grill on deck 3, which has a carving station plus a limited menu – it got great reviews from some fellow passengers, but it is outside and it was too cold to consider on our cruise.

Breakfast and lunch were faultless.  Both had a nice buffet layout plus menu offerings, and everything we had was excellent.  Breads and boulangerie were terrific.  Eggs benedict was very good – until I discovered the fantastic French toast.  The luncheon menu offerings were all very good [we didn’t keep notes on what we had, sorry].

I would suggest offering the Grill carving selection on the Restaurant dinner menu[if they can figure out how to ‘plate’ it], adding more shellfish and red meat as entrees, and more Traditional French recipes – the cuisine was heavy on ceviches and carpaccios rather than cream sauces.

But that’s the only criticism I have of Ponant, and it reads more negatively than I felt at the time – I managed to gain 6 pounds despite hiking 6 miles a day, so I must have been eating something!  [Did I mention how good the breads were?]

I also want to praise their generous loyalty program.  You become a Major when you book your second Ponant cruise [that’s right: when you book it, not after you complete it].  That gives you a 50 Euro per person onboard credit, free laundry, and a 5% discount on future bookings.  That’s on top of the regular amenities: open bar and cabin mini-bar, free wi-fi, port charges and taxes.  The only thing that Ponant doesn’t include is gratuities [but on this cruise, Backroads took care of them for us].

Backroads is a top notch hiking [and biking] tour company.  We had 37 in our group [there was a 40-person limit], with four on-board Trip Leaders and six on-shore Support Staff – that’s an amazing ratio!  The passengers covered a wide range of ages and abilities [and foibles], and the leaders were always eager to assist and to modify routes so that every single person got the most out of their trip [even a few that probably shouldn’t have booked such an active trip].  Magdalena [Austrian], Svenja [German], Diego [Paraguay?], and Chema [Spain] blended into a well-oiled team – not an Icelander in the bunch, but they knew the territory and spoke flawless Icelandic [to my gringoears].  We never felt that there was any more they could do, or that we wished they could do.

However, we also realized that Backroads is focused on exercise.  The leaders were very apologetic about the missed port – not because we missed seeing Heimaey but because we missed our daily exercise!  But frankly, after 5 straight days of hiking [preceded by 2 days of extensive walking in Reykjavík], that Sea Day was a most welcome thing!The hikes on this trip are rated from Level 1 to 2, and some of them were at the upper limit of our abilities.  The climb to the summit on Heimaey would have been beyond us.  So as we look at other Backroads offerings, we are very careful to examine the daily choices – knowing that we won’t be able to do the more strenuous ones, and therefore considering whether we will feel shortchanged when we choose the easier options.  This is not a criticism of Backroads – a program like this can’t be all things to all people.  They have a very good program, it’s just probably a little too strenuous for us in our 70s.